darcshadow

If a straight cable was needed that would work, but a Null modem cable is required between the cutter and PC/adapter.

What model? Has it ever closed or just started doing this? Have you tried adjusting the pressure?

Most computers don't but getting a good adapter and not using the cheap adapter chip installed in the machine is worth it.

Have you tried a serial cable?

+1 on Inkscape. Bit of a learning curve but not bad, and extremely powerful design program.

You say you vectorized the design? It's all text, it would turn out much cleaner if you simply retyped it all. That might also improve the path taken by the plotter.

how much is "a bit" at 66" long, if the bit is less than a 1/4" you're doing good.

Most likely because it's more of a specialty/craft vinyl and not a big seller.

For home printing I gave up on inkjets several years ago. Switched to laser and have not looked back. Inkjets is superior for in home photo reproduction but for just standard printing laser wins out hands down.

VM has a reduce travel option. That might do what you're wanting. From a post about 2 years ago,

If VM cut doesn't have that function, and it's a pretty useful function you might want to look into other software. Either an upgrade of VM, or something else entirely. Inkscape is a free and very powerful vector program.

Ungrouping may not be enough. You might need to break apart the design. I'm not sure how or if this is possible in VM. Inkscape would be my go to for something like this. Can you post an image of the design, might help with offering suggestions.

Just take your black lines and subtract them from the red. I think the term in VM is called punch through.

Sounds like you were relying on the software to detect that your design is too big. Personally I try never to rely on software to detect things like that and always layout my design as I want it cut.

What do you mean upside down? There's no real up or down with vinyl cutters. It's just a matter of how you look at it.

You might also look into Inkscape (it's free). I understand wanting to learn one software and use it for everything but I've found Inkscape more intuitive than I have with VM. That could also be that I learned Inkscape first, I don't know. But I know I could do this shape in Inkscape much faster than I could in VM.

Here's a video on doing outlines in VM.

Inkscape is a great free vector program. If you have photoshop already and are comfortable using it, stick with it for the raster part, then you can use Inkscape for the vector part, and what ever cut software comes with your cutter, or SignBlazer is free and is a good cut program. Inkscape can also be used to cut, although it's not ideal, it is a free option.

Layering wouldn't make it shrink more/faster but it might make it more obvious. The layers will pull on each other and cause distortions more so than a single layer.

It greatly depends on the initial image. Most auto trace systems have a lot of stray/necessary nodes and to get a good clean cut a good bit of work can be required to clean up the file. The higher quality the initial image the better the trace will be. Images with multiple colors can result in some odd vectors. Either colors layered on top of each other, or they are sized exactly as seen which typically is not a good way to cut either. A simple example say a black square with a red circle in it. Some trace programs will give you a black square with a hole in it, and a red circle. There's nothing wrong with this, but for cutting and layering, it would be better to just have a black square with no hole, and then layer the red circle on top of it. Some programs would trace that same image as a red square, with a black square with a hole in it, layered on top of the red square. If you want to play around before buying anything, download Inkscape, it's free. Play around with it a little and you'll get a better understanding of vector graphics.

Contour cutting is mainly for print work. You print an image on vinyl then feed the vinyl through your cutter and it cuts the desired shape around the image.

When you say split it in half using nodes, what are you meaning? A raster image can not be edited using nodes. You need to either edit the image in a raster image editor such as Photoshop, or convert it to a vector and edit it using a vector program such as VinylMaster. Even though you only want half of the image, the easiest way would be to vector the entire thing, then draw a box over the half out don't and do a punch through to delete that half. I forget the actual term used in VM, punch through might not be the right one.

While the MH is an ok cutter, for the small price difference, you'll be much happier with the SC.

Ok, so if you're cutting 6mil vinyl, ie 0.006" thick, and you have your blade set to 1/32, ie 0.03125", that is 5.2 times too much blade exposed. Not to be rude, and I run into this at work as well, if you ask a subject mater expert for help, don't ignore it when it is not the answer you were expecting.

I have not played with Signcut pro, but most vectoring software is capable of vectoring by color. Be warned though, the more detailed and colored the image, the harder it is to get a good vector. But yes, what you're wanting to do is entirely possible. Also, keep in mind, any stencils made out of vinyl are a one time thing. You won't be able to use them more than once. If you want to do the same design a second time you'll just have to cut out a second set of vinyls.